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Monday, 29 May 2017

Sometimes I write for work, sometimes I write for myself and my own enjoyment.

But on the odd occasion more recently I write as a coping strategy, a personal little therapy to work through and make sense of bad events and sad memories.

Today I want to work through recent events.

There was a minute of silence on Friday. It was at 11 o'clock in the morning and I was sat at my desk

The drilling and chipping
around the station stopped. Men in dusty overalls paused in their
labour. My colleague sat, arms resting in her lap, no victims of
crime on the end of the phone or updates to crime enquiries to be tapped into the keyboard.

We sat in silence remembering the awful events in Manchester, to show our respect for those who had been taken from their families and friends too
soon, too unfairly, too brutally.

We had done something similar few short weeks
ago after the horrible attack in London.

That time my colleagues and I had stood in front of the station, heads bowed. We remembered, we showed our respect, we thought of our fallen colleague.

Whilst standing outside the police station and on Friday I felt angry at the perpetrators.

I felt
overwhelming sympathy for the bereaved.

I felt sorrow and respect for the families, friends and first responders.

I knew some of them will have to live with the psychological impact of those events; the illogical guilt, the "what if", the "if only".

I wanted to tell each of them I that it will hurt and the hurt can be utterly overwhelming, that there will be a hole in their lives and their guts that nothing will fill.

Especially I wanted to tell them it is OK to feel that way. It really does suck, but it is OK to feel these things, and they don't need to beat you or define you. It is possible to live with those feelings and memories, and to go on to feel happiness again and make a good life; for the sake of those gone before us I truly believe we must.

This is not and could never be a comparison between my experiences and those touched by recent terrorist attacks. My bad experiences do not compare, and I won't dwell on them here. However I do want to share what a person I respect enormously shared with me.

I'm not sure why,
but that is always where my mind goes in vivid detail during times of
remembrance.

It was almost 9 years ago.

I was squatting in a metal
walled work space with broken fire main pipes running up the wall to my
left, sunlight coming through the doorway
that was behind my right shoulder and a bunch of broken furniture in the corner. My back was against the wall, an internal bulkhead that was pleasantly cool.

Around the workspace seven or eight Iraqi Marines sat on the floor
paying close attention to the man sat opposite me. He was Doc, and I
remember vividly a part of his battlefield first aid lecture. He was explaining what to consider when treating an eviscerated casualty. Doc was there as a US Navy Independent Duty Corpsmen. They're good people.

We were two
“coalition” personnel who went to the Iraqi accommodation block at one end
of the al-Basra Oil Terminal, or ABOT as it was called, to occassionally deliver training.

The Iraqi living conditions on ABOT were not good. The majority of
the coalition staff were at the other end of ABOT about one kilometre
away along a steel walkway. The coalition accommodation was better. We were 12 miles off the Iraqi coast.

At the time of this lecture there was a suicide bombing campaign centred on Baghdad being orchestrated by al-Qaeda. I don't know how many bombs had been detonated, but fatalities and casualties were being counted in the hundreds. Families of some of these Iraqi Marines lived in Baghdad and I've no doubt friends and relatives of the Iraqi Marines I was helping train had been lost to suicide bombs.

The marines listened with understandable concentration. They were incredibly professional, proud and motivated. They asked questions in broken English. What they were learning were skills they could expect to use for real.

Along with Doc I joined the Iraqi training officer in their canteen for a sweet tea. We talked.

I can't remember the context exactly, but talking about the situation in Baghdad seems likely. My memory is that the training officer said something like.

"The sadness and fear that comes from these outrages does not have to paralyse you forever. To live with that sadness and fear we must understand why we feel them. Then we must practice taking the sadness and fear out of our memories. Then we will be able to live again."

Looking back to when I started working through my own issues, with the help of a couple of therapists and a bunch of SSRI meds, it seems to me I was being taken through the steps the Iraqi training officer was describing.

Survivors, families, friends and first responders will go on. To those who have gone ahead I'd just like to say, "At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember you."

PS - I would also ask that you drive safely, are kind to each other and respect each other's stuff.

Sunday, 14 May 2017

PCSOs, or Police
Community Support Officers for those of us in England and Wales1
who still speak English and not Acronym2,
started to appear in the Devon and Cornwall Police around 2004. They
are awesome members of the police family.

Anti-social
behaviour was on the rise and on the telly; the two traditional
precursors to news outlets letting us know we are going to “crack
down” on something.

I was a Constable in
Cornwall at the time and sure enough we cracked down. PCSOs had been
recruited and I had been told to complete the Anti-Social Behaviour
Act of 2003 “Eee Learning” package. It's a training method that
got it's name after an enthusiastic Yorkshire student was told they
were going on a training course devoid of human interaction. Or
maybe not.

So the office of
PCSO held by my current office mates has been around well over 10
years. That is about 253
or so “cop years” which are measured on the relativity based
“life experienced” scale.

What they do with
the powers and authorities they have been given is phenomenal. They
work with councils, schools, doctors and social workers to look after
vulnerable people. They also contribute to searching for high risk
missing persons, staffing cordons at major crimes, conduct the
pervasive “concern for welfare” door knocks, shepherd drunks,
keep the lid on disputes between neighbours and “crack down” on
anti-social behaviour as well as much more.

And PCSOs do all
this whilst being the approachable, and sometimes only face of
policing in their communities. I have no doubt that PCSOs are doing
the majority of everything I did as a Constable. However PCSOs are
not allowed to be in charge of putting a prosecution case file
together, or get involved in the “dynamic and confrontational”
aspects of policing the streets. That said, a PCSO and I once got a
written pat on the back from a Chief Superintendent following a very
exciting bit of rough and tumble. We both collected a few bumps and
bruises, and a fellow went off to prison for an extended stay. Just
awesome.

But times have moved
on.

Alongside the police
the 213 Parish and Town Councils in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly,
Cornwall Council, the Fire and Rescue Service, housing associations
and others have got much better at working together to address the
anti-social behaviour of the few.

As is the way of the
world, other unpleasant human behaviour is on the rise and on the
telly. I am standing by to crack down on it, whatever it may be. I
am sure my PCSO colleagues and I will adapt again, perhaps see a new
acronym join our family, and embark on another bout of computer based
education.

I hope you have a
great week.

Inspector blogging

PS -- please drive safe, be kind, respect other's stuff.

1PCSO
in Scotland stands for Police Custody and Security Officer, a bit
like a Detention Officer here but with car keys and lots more
collecting and transporting of prisoners and people with the police
because they are poorly - in their mental health.

2I
am not a big fan of using letters instead of words. Consider World
Wide Web versus WWW for instance.

3Which
is not as long as Community Service Officers have been around
in some Police Departments in the United States of America.

Sunday, 7 May 2017

Actually it is the
former Detective Superintendent's meeting room into which
displaced staff at the station have moved whilst “building
improvements” take place.

The disadvantage is
that I get easily distracted from important analysis and project
management by chatting with the the Patrol, Neighbourhood, Public
Protection, Alarm Fitters and Crime Management Hub staff.

The
advantage is that I get easily distracted from important analysis and
project management by chatting with the the Patrol, Neighbourhood,
Public Protection, Alarm Fitters and Crime Management Hub staff.

One morning last
week I was lucky enough to chat with a Patrol Officer as he finished
off his last night shift before his rest days.

He is a quietly
spoken and friendly fellow with a ready smile and seemed to enjoy
telling me how he got to “blow stuff up!”. That's not exactly how
he described it, but close enough.

You see, of the
millions of tons of explosives we Europeans have thrown, fired,
launched and dropped at and on each other over the last 120 years an
unknown percentage did not go bang. On small item from that
percentage, for an unknown reason was found in a remote rural corner
of South East Cornwall.

The finder called us, we called the Army,
the Army called the Navy and in the way of things we sent a Patrol
Officer to put up tape and 'keep the public safe'.

Over the next
four or so hours I like to think he may have seen a fox, some
moorland sheep and ponies in the distance and perhaps an early
Skylark or two. He didn't say. But he did say that the public, who
may have had some kind of sixth sense, were not to be seen anywhere.

In an impressively
military way the Navy arrived, probably with a rubber boat on the
roof rack. These guys always have a rubber boat on the roof rack.
They might call it a de-rigged eight foot Gemini secured to a vehicle
mounted boat cradle. I won't. Also, on arrival these guys always ask
the police officer to move the tape back “another 50 yards mate”.
They then have a huddle, look at the picture again, and put a bunch
of explosives next to the bomb. They may use phrases like extend the
blast area cordon, Render Safe Procedure assessment, disposal charges
and munitions. I won't.

Once the necessary
had been done, the area thoroughly checked and the team were stood behind something solid, the
“Navy bloke in charge” asked the Patrol Officer if he wanted to
“press the button?” Who wouldn't?

The sequence of
events went something like this.

The “Navy bloke in
charge” held the detonator with confident, professional
nonchalance as he said to the Patrol Officer “What you need to do
is squeeze this handle and at the same time press this button.....”

Here it is worth
pointing out that a police officer usually has to work out a “course
of action” in confusing and volatile situations, using limited and
unreliable information, often provided by emotional and sometimes
chemically enhanced people, who have an agenda or worse.

To have a crystal
clear situation with unambiguous instructions is something just too
lovely to ignore.

The Patrol Officer
immediately reached out, took the detonator, squeezed the handle and
pushed the button.

The small black
plume of dirt propelled by white smoke jumped into the air, instantly
followed by the intimidating boom and the satisfyingly chunky shock
wave. Or that is how I like to think it went down.

What the Patrol
Officer did say is that after the loud bang the Navy bloke in charge
went pale and went on the say “......after I do one last safety
check, give the all clear and tell you to go ahead.”

Have a great day,

Inspector

PS – I like to speak plainly. It has helped when I have been working out my own courses of action.

PPS – Please drive
safely even when you're a bit late, be kind to each other, and leave
other people's stuff alone.

1“Set”
in this context means a 'set' of six shifts worked as 2 days, 2
lates and 2 nights.